That's a great tip. I actually discovered it a while back completely by accident when I forgot to re-focus after changing to a thinner piece of steel. Now I can do in about 45 seconds what previously would've taken almost 10 minutes. Now here's a tip for you: make yourself a sandbox for leveling oddly shaped objects (like a knife). Just get a shallow plastic tub and fill it with sand. Trust me, it makes life so much easier.
So I recently got a fiber laser and have been practicing with it, I got your parameter library. I have a 50w Raycus, I just bought 2 new lenses 150 and 70mm (it came with 300) I tried the z-mark with settings provided by your lib on the 70mm lens and keeping it in focus worked perfectly, going out of focus at all made little to no marks
I too now have a 50w Raycus (EMP ST50R) and it came with a 290mm lens. I'm having trouble understanding how to convert all the things. Any tips on where I should look to start figuring this out? Thanks!
Do you have any videos explaining why you defocus here and/or what type of results you would get with all the same settings but in focus? Loving the vids, thanks!!
Yes you always want to defocus away from your focal point, focusing closer could instigate a back flash where photos return through the lens to the source, damaging your machine. Only in rare circumstances do I suggest focusing closer and it always carries risk, however slight.
@@LaserEverything so if I’m suppose to be say 11cm away from my object, I want to set the laser 11.3 cm away from the object. Or do I want to life the object by 3mm ? Sounds the same but don’t want to mess it up
Great tip, i try i today ( 3 years later ) on a Stainless steel knife and looks gorgeous, black or silver depending on how light points to it!!! Thank you, i follow LS on Discord 💪
It took me a few tries because I have Automatic focus. Also have a 40 Watt Laser engraver instead of the 35 watt in the example. The first pass, it had small sparks and wasn't black, but was a copperish-brown color. Then I pressed the down button on the autofocus approx. 2mm and the sparks reduced, but there were still sparks. Then I pressed down again about 1 mm and no more sparks and it looked similar to the video. So now I know to hit the point, just when sparks stop and I get nice black markings.
Great video! I feel so stupid because I bought a DRO but I haven't had a chance to install it yet so I haven't tried out of focus marking. It seemed like it would be a pain without the DRO.... I have no idea why I never thought of making a certain thickness spacer to focus on like you did lol. Weird how simple things seems so obvious after seeing it hahaha. Thanks for all the great tips!
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it and got something out of it. Always makes me happy when someone who knows what I'm talking about still gets something out of the vid! The spacer is amazing. I've never had any kind of focusing system so I've always had to do it the hard way and you learn how to be lazy about doing things the hard way 🤣
I've done a few jobs using this technique and noticed that on SS dining cutlery with very little carbon (non-magnetic) it left a great mark with no corrosion at all. However, on a SS knife which had more carbon and therefor slightly magnetic ( I believe so it can be hardened to keep the edge durable) the mark has begun to show signs of rusting.
You might be a little close on focus, you shouldn't be ablating any material with this mark. Try moving your laser head further away from the piece and adjusting your power and frequency to get the black result but just a little more out of focus. The larger dot size should keep the laser from actually ablating the metal.
I often see the appropriate advice to adjust settings to compensate for the different wattage machines. Isn't it equally important to know the lens size? E.g. We would likely get a different result using the same settings on a 220 vs 70mm lens.
It is, one of my oldest videos and it's certainly showing it's age. The main difference with a larger lens for this type of mark is going to be the increased depth of field on a larger lens. Essentially you'll have to move FURTHER out of focus on a larger lens than you would on a smaller one since you have so much more in focus depth on the larger lens. Instead of +3mm it could be +4, +6 etc
Hey Alex! Love all your videos and being a memeber of the LMA, just wodering, I got a nice black marking, but should i not be able to feel the engrave at all, I can a little bit with my finger and I know you said we werent altering the metal at all. Thanks dude!!
Alex, thanks for all your tips and tricks! Just a short one, instead of making a new focal stick that is 3mm shorter, why don't you use the hight adjustment of your tower? There is already a scale at the tower that you could use ;-) Even quicker would be a scale at the hight adjusting wheel. I know for example that 1 turn on my adjusting wheel is 4mm.
All great suggestions! Lots of people do it they way you're suggesting on the discord. Some fiber lasers don't come with gauge on the tower to be able to tell or some other reason. Mostly I do it this way cuz that's how I learned so it's just the force of habit now 🤣 Thanks for watching!
Can this be done with photos? Dark blacks on steel with this annealing-type method? If so, how can we adjust the hatch line space with a bmp? Can the bmp simply be hatched? Thanks again.
Theoretically it should be great for that, but I've struggled getting good results. For the line space I would refer you to our photo engraving guide, check that out and try to apply this method to that theory.
Awesome settings. I was very frustrated with the results I was getting before I about gave up then seen your video and gave it a try. Settings worked out very nice! I appreciate this and will have to watch more of your videos. Thank you. Also on a side note. I’m running a 150 lens would that affect the about of focus I would have to be off any since you have a 110?
You might be a little less out of focus than me but not by much. Just get some scrap and test and when you find the cleanest blackest mark take note of it. Make a physical spacer out of some cardboard and tape if you can like I did.
Is z-marking the same as annealing? Or is it considered different? When I tried this on my machine it does appear that there is some slight ablation happening, so I assume they are not the same? Thanks for any insight you could provide!
There is definitely some ablation with the z mark not a proper anneal, but that ablation is required to really get a true black. So while they operate on similar thermodynamics they are inherently different.
It's easier on gold than silver but semi-possible. Not using this method however. This method only works for ferrous metals. It's a topic for another video.
It's easier on gold than silver but semi-possible. Not using this method however. This method only works for ferrous metals. It's a topic for another video.
If you head to the Laser Everything website, there is a link to our shared library right on the homepage. It covers most wattage and lens combinations, for both ezcad and Lightburn. All made free, possible by the community support over at the Laser Master Academy, check that out too if you get value from the community resources :)
I know this is slightly irrelevant, but do you have any knowledge on giving a stainless steel knife an acid bath or something to recoat it after engraving?
Yep you're totally right. I make jokes about it in later episodes lol, just make sure you have the workspace selected - I've turned on continuous without noticing it so many times.
i have a 30w raycus fiberlaser, your recommend setting value is good work! very nice blackcolor but its a so slowly, how to change value for speedy marking?? grow up power and speed?
Nice vid! About how high is the laser head to the work piece ? In mm’s ? Also how do you keep the preview to stay solid & not in format of laser marking ? Eg moving 1500mm per second 😆 Thanks buddy!
The laser is galvo operated so it MUST trace the outline in order to show it to you. Mechanically and optically that's how it works. You can check and uncheck the "Show Contour" box to change how that trace is displayed though. This was done on my 110 lens and for my specific lens the focal distance is 182mm, we add 3 mm for the z-mark so the total distance is 185mm. Every individual lens has a unique focal distance so your distances will be slightly different.
@@LaserEverything thanks for the info, yes ss for the show contour i have that on my 30w fiber but it moves so fast it’s hard to gauge exactly where the profile is going to go, as per your video it looks as if the contour is continually lit & not moving ? If you know whwt i mean, or else it’s just the recording appearing to make the contour look stationary. Thanks 🙏🏽
May just be the frame rate of the camera syncing up with the repetition of the outline because it's definitely not solid in real life. If it's moving too fast for you a neat trick is to set the loop count (by power, speed, etc) higher and relight. 50, 100, 500, 1000 all work well depending on what you're marking. Just don't forget to set it back to one before you start the job!
Really nice settings. Although, my tests actually does corrode :( Made a pizzawheel with z-marks and after the first turn in the dishwasher, the black marks was showing small corrosion dots. I use a 20w raycus source. Used settings 50 speed, 45 power, 30kHz (as my machine apparently doesnt go below 30) Defocused 3 mm. Any tips on how to avoid the corrosion? :)
Dear Laser Everything! If you have got time to respond, help me out please. Did you ever tried to Engrave colors on a fiber laser machine? Our company (very small one) had bought a CAXTM_IND_20_1.1 20W Modell with Fiber Raycus laser source, 100x100mm and maximum 200x200 (change the lense to change the size), and i tried a lot of Khz/power/speed technologys in the EzCad3 program. But i still cannot understand how is it works, what parameters should i check in the laser setting or somewhere else. Cause the machine works fine with your technology of 50.8mm/s speed, 31,3% power and with 25Khz frequency on stainless steel while powder coating on it. These parameters works fine for us and the result is a very good edge quality and a very deep black color. So my question is, did you ever tried the color engraving in fiber type laser machine and if you did, Can i ask you an email or anything where i can contact you and help me out with some parameters should i check or try. Thank you very much.
I can't provide in depth support in youtube comments but if you'd like to get help you can join our discord server where we can talk a little about the capabilities of your machine. Here's a link: discord.gg/NhZQdtCu The short version is that your Raycus laser source does not have the flexibility and range to get a wide array of colors on steel, if any at all. It's going to be difficult but some raycus owners in the community may be able to help you if you ask. See you there.
Hello. Was planning on getting a 50w 200m x 200m fiber laser. Would that lens size be too large to put small details into zippos and other smaller items this size? Thank you in advance!
We did this on a 30w JPT LP laser with a 110 lens, so the settings won't reflect from the video. You can utilize the library on our website however, it includes a rough conversion for almost every laser source and lens combo as a starting point.
Hi Alex, thank you for making & sharing this video. I'm having an EZCAD problem I can't figure out and am hoping you can help. I feel like it's got to be something very simple that I'm missing. I'm trying to 'laser anneal' a mark on stainless. I have a .png file that I use, and that comes out how I want, but it goes very slow, like a printer. When I try to laser anneal a vector-based design it seems like EZCAD is overriding my settings, and it just engraves the piece instead of creating this smooth, black marking. I'm using a 50 watt machine from SFX. I reached out to them for help and they just stopped responding. Thanks so much! -Doug
The only issue I've seen is that since it is an oxidation of the surface of the steel any physical abrasion of the metal is going to affect the mark one way or another. Outside of that I haven't seen any issues including washing, UV exposure, and other considerations.
Hey Alex, great video man. Ive noticed before in my laser etching that if the beam focus is below the part (AKA. the part is lasered above the beam convergence) you get a nicer deeper dark mark. Have you experimented around with focus 3mm below the part? Just curious if youve experienced the same. Thanks for the great work.
Haven't messed with it except really limited cases, usually plastics. Down focusing increases your chance of flashback by quite a bit and it's usually not worth the risk for me so I always up focus whenever possible if I need something defocused.
Thank you so much for this video. I’ve been struggling for 3 days trying to laser 19 gage stainless steel. I had all colors but black. My settings even warped my blank.
Hello! I hope it's ok to put this up here. I have a 30W fiber laser... When i use the 'normal' software and add a text or some sort of symbol it works just fine on aluminum and also stainless steel etc. Problems occur when i import a logo... I am pretty new to lasers.. The program seems to be working extremely slow when the image is imported and there are parts of the logo that are missed by the laser. Is it maybe a Pixel problem of the imported logo? Thanks for any help.
Your best bet is on aluminum is going to be Brilliance Laser Inks, linked in the description. Its very difficult to get black marks on non-ferrous metals and nearly impossible on aluminum.
I would recommend joining the discord. I'm sharing the parameters though this video series but lots of people like to share settings in the discord community so you might find the help you're looking for there.
We can, but if you want the fast version, the process is essentially identical. The differences are that the hatch settings are done on a fill layer in lightburn and would be the same settings for the parameters as this video, this was done on a 30w JPT with 110 lens.
Question. What machine is this? I need to ba able to see my logo on the product before i engrave it. Is that just the machine or machine and software? Thanks
Hi Alex, Thanks for the very helpful videos / tutorials that you produce! Just got a new 30 watt fiber laser and slowing learning my way around. Can you tell me how to access your database of established material profiles? I am not sure what current platform you are using to share those; happy to pay for the information, just need to know where to go to get it. From watching a number of videos I believe I heard you say that you switched platforms where this infomation is avaialble. Thanks for your help!
Thank you, yes we left Patreon for our new supporter community the Laser Master Academy! You can find it over at masters.lasereverything.net/ and it includes what you're looking for!
Hello. I am wondering if you provide any distance training one-to-one and if I could hire you or someone at your company to get better at engraving on my machine?
Hi Alex, I recently discovered your RU-vid channel. Fantastic work and explanations. I wanted to know if you have tried engraving, with LASER MOPA 60W, on material such as brass/bronze. In your opinion, is there the possibility of marking with different colors (such as stainless steel)?
Kyle and I both have a 60w Mopa laser, and they both do fantastic with brass and bronze. We've done several brass coins on the channel as well, recently Kyle did the 3D heightmap one. Colors on stainless as well, though colors is a tricky topic and a bit of a deep hole to dig down into. We'll dive into colors eventually for a video though.
You cant mark anodizing black natively with a fiber laser. You're always going to get a white or grey. You could try using a chemical catalyst like brilliance laser ink or cermark.
Just picked it up off AliExpress. I think the link is dead for it now but there are many similar ones you can find with a quick search for Kitchen or Chef Knife.
You can get a very nice black mark with a UV laser, we'll be doing an episode on that down the road - but these settings wont work. These are specifically for fiber.
this might be a dumb question, i bought a 50w jpt not long ago and i was wondering why when i use cross hatch the engrave mark goes just past its mark a tiny bit in some spots
I'm happy to help out with this but if you could post some photos to the discord (link in the description) it would be a huge help in diagnosing the issue! :)
thanks , i found going up to 25 power on my mopa 60w gave me a nice black using everything else the same as your settings now trying to find someone willing to share the rainbow settings as heaps are saying they can do it and happy to share pics but none are actually sharing settings all saying DYOR which is annoying
thats the way this "black" works. it's an irridescent black. it's not a true black, this is not possible without burning the hell out of the steel, or using a black coating like cermark.
We will share it again in lightburn some day on a future project. It’s the same process and settings in the meantime. No difference in settings between the software, just different menus
@@LaserEverything thanks . i have been fallowing you for a while. I just realized that I wasn't subscribed and fixed that today. You make great content and have helped me out a lot.
The metallurgy behind it will likely cause some differences, but any steels we've tried (in most cases, we weren't sure what grade we were working with since they were customer provided material), it hasn't made a huge difference for us so far. At the very least, if you have 1 working, it should likely get you into the ballpark with another, even if there are minor changes needed like an extra pass for depth of color for example. I'm sure we can dig a bit into that in a future project with known material samples to test it out in a more formal way maybe.
The lasers don't come with parameters. You can support the channel over at masters.lasereverything.net/ to get the whole laser everything parameter library and support the channel :)
The Default Param where you got the Z Black setting, my system has no files in that window. Is there a way to download default starting settings like that? I know we can save settings that work for us in that window, but does the program come with preloaded defaults? If so, mine are missing
Sorry for the delay! They aren't default settings, they were tuned over years of testing and engraving different materials and saved. This is going to be different for each laser, wattage, and lens combo, but all of our shared parameters are now available if you head to the Laser Everything website which can offer you a great starting point, there is a link to our shared library right on the homepage. It covers most wattage and lens combinations, for both ezcad and Lightburn. All made free, possible by the community support over at the Laser Master Academy, check that out too if you get value from the community resources :)
Great Video! I tried joining your discord server - however - discord expects me to get rid of my account first? it tells me I'm already logged into another account (Yeah, I'm on a couple servers for other things) so it won't let me verify. Any input or advice would be greatly appreciated. Keep up the great work!
If you're logged into another account and it's asking you to verify head into your main account settings and find the phone number section. Add a phone number and verify via the one time passcode and it should let you use that account without creating a new one.
A CO2 can't replicate this mark. We have other videos for 10600nm beams. Try this link: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NLsNRIfiMYI.html&ab_channel=LaserEverything
Yep, shouldn't be any different aside from some power level adjustments considering you have twice the wattage. The trick is to heat it up without ablating it.
@@LaserEverything can you share parameter for 50W? i cant change the frequency because the company prohibited it, they said the machine will broken if change frequency :(
@@LaserEverything Patreon. Just spins and spins. I got in but it takes so long that I jump off. Loved your video and need these to learn so I am willing to support but I need the links to be responsive.
@@FiveStarAwardsAndEngraving I appreciate that feedback but unfortunately that link is accurate. I have had a few others test it for me and have confirmed that link is working and responsive. Sorry I can't be more helpful! :( I hope whatever issue you're having resolves itself. Apologies.
@@LaserEverything I've tried several times. I get as far as checkout and it spins and spins for card number, so I tried PaPal, spins and spins. Not sure why. I have gotten value from your videos and would like to see more and get more settings. Maybe I'll try from the office. My home computer is usally faster but maybe something is wonky.
Must be. Sorry I can't help :/ I'm unable to reproduce the problem so I'm not sure if it's connectivity or something else but I'll let you know if some issue becomes apparent and gets fixed!
Probably but I haven't messed with it too much. Perfecting the z-mark AT ALL is fairly difficult. Never really felt the need to mess with it further but who knows? Definitely do some experimenting with frequency and focus and see what you get.
Technically you could adjust the power a little bit but the problem you're going to run into is that in order to get it black the metal has to reach a certain temperature and by reducing the power you make it much more difficult to hit that temperature but with that said I mean you can always play with all the settings to try to improve them